Monday, April 28, 2014

I rather fancied something a little different this week saying as I have used a lot of lace recently that is one item that was going to be avoided :) Instead I designed a dragonfly border to be cut with my die cutter.

Next I air brushed it with a green Promarker and used embossing powder sprinkled on top fairly lightly, just to give some texture.

And here is the completed frame.

Next I tried using oil pastels for the white area behind the digi which will be coloured with Promarmers. I am wanting to try the new Spectrum Noir pastel crayons when they come out which are oil based so thought it was a good way to start experimenting.

Next I coloured the digi with Promarkers.

Got to have a bit of bling so I added Stickles to the centres of the flowers and sections of the dragonfly wings.

Out with a new die ( I bought it last year but have not used it till now), Elizabeth Craft Designs dragonfly. The bodies were cut using the same card as I used for the card base and the wings out of a clear overhead projector sheet. I then sprayed ares of the wings with my Purple Promarker. Later, when I laid them on the card they needed more colour so I sprayed the back of the wings with Orange Promarker.

I cut a simple frame to go behind the digi which I airbrushed with Green, Spice and Metallic Gold Promarkers. I only wanted a hit of a shaped edge, more as an accent really than being to obvious. Time to assemble and here we have the finished card.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Hello folks. We have another challenge at One Stitch At A Time so how about popping over to see all the fabulous creations by the design team.

Challenge #210

Theme 'Anything Goes'

The sponsor is StitchyBear Digital Outlet with the April 7 image prize pack. To win main prize you MUST use an Image from our store. Runner up prize for person using none store image is $3 to spend in the StitchyBear Digital Outlet. So everyone can win something ;O).

To begin with I used some steampunk paper from Kaban which I then embossed with the Tri Boss folder in my 'not all over' method using a rolling pin hahahaha. Seriously though, it is a great way of adding embossing without having an all over effect and also great when the embossing folder is not the right size of the paper. I have load of 6x4 embossing folders and never make 6x4 cards so this way they still get to be used.

Next I distressed the edges of the paper and also the embossed areas.

Then airbrushed with my ProMarker to give an tired old look to the card.

Fun now. A few weeks ago I bought this copper metal sheet to try with my die cutter (Spellbinder) keeping fingers crossed it would work. Not sure it is good for the dies but every now and again can't do much harm. I cut clock faces using X-Cut dies and it worked brilliantly. Next time out I will have to get a couple more rolls of this and the gold and silver too :) :) :) :) Out with the ProMarker and airbrushing again then put the clock faces to one side to dry.

After a couple of cups of coffee, back to the craft took and time to be rough with the one clock face I had airbrushed. Alas pointless airbrushing before scratching as had to air brush again. Below you can see the two I had cut but not airbrushed, much better.

Airbrushing now cutting and scratching finished, I am really pleased with the way these have turned out :) :) The clock hands and backs were cut with black card.

Really into a metal mood I wanted a border. Now I don't have much of the copper so not using that and had no silver but did have an old Red Bull can which is really thin metal. Hubby headed and tailed it for me and I ran it through the die cutter using a Sizzix border die. Again great alas still holding the shape of the curved can. Not to much of a problem as I will be fixing with a permenant adhesive after I had airbrushed it with - you guessed - the same ProMarker.

Digi time now. I printed 3 copies of the digi so I could layer the sections. All sections were coloured with ProMarkers.

And then airbrushing hahahaha - the compressor is working over time today. One of the colours in the Promarker selection is Shale. I don't see it used much, one of those odd colours but so beautiful. Apart from the greys the only other colour used is this shale throughout the card.

Promarkers used

I forgot to mention I also heat embossed the digi clock faces with Silver Pearl and the wrist band with clear then finished off with some copper in various areas.

Here we have all the sections of the card, including buttons I had coloured and my sentiment and a Birthday peel off sticker.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

As part of a tag swap organised by Kirsty for the IKEsWorld FB page I created this wee cutie. The tag swap was called Punch Drunk so we all had to use our punches.

The first problem was finding which box I had packed them all away in lol

OK, so what did I do.

I do love shoes so heart punches and the new Winged Shoe digi seemed the way to go <g> I started off cutting a purple heart and then using the hearts punch in one corner. I also printed on the purple another bit of the purple card the sentiment 'Here's hoping shoes go to heaven too' as I would love to think I could wear all my beautiful shoes if I make it to heaven <g>. Next I used Shimmer Mist to spray both sections of purple card/

Next, back to the wee heart punch and this time I wanted the hearts. I punched out a few in purple glitter paper.

Next, but I forgot to take a photo, I used a heart embossing folder and my hammer to emboss only sections of the card. Onto to flower soft next for a bit of texture.

Time to colour the digi, the beautiful Winged Shoe, hopefully I have achieved a silver look.

Finally the finished tag. The sentiment heart was attached to the bottom and a white and purple bow to the top <g>.

Morning folks, hope you are having a good day today :) It is week two of the IKEsWORLD challenge, ????????? and still plenty of time for you to enter. Just remember, you must use and IKEsART image to be eligible for the prize. Why not pop on over to the store, Ike produces the most amazing stamps, everything from off the wall to cute and fluffy :) :) :)

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

This weeks challenge over at IKE'sWORLD is Tickled PINK - shock, horror - NOT pink, please no pink, I can't work in PINK lol. A compromis is required, cerise shades of pink - yep I can go with that hahahaha.

For this card I worked with one of the new digs in the store called Shhhhhhhh, isn't she just something else.

I had so much fun with this card, a real touchy feely one, full of texture. To begin with I designed a cutting file for the white cut out design. Here is my Black Cat doing the hard work

And here is the finished cut piece. It is deliberately an odd shape as the the digi will be covering a lot of this up and no point blunting my blade for nothing.

Next I printed the digi. You can see I have added a pink shadow around the edges, this is so I can fussy cut by hand but not lose all the single strands of hair.

Once the digi was printed I coloured it with my Promarkers (oops the photo is a bit on the purple side) Once she was coloured I then added small cerise gems to the hair, a bit of discreet bling never goes amiss.

For the dp I planned to use something patterned but unbelievably out of all the papers I have I could not match up the pinks. I would normally match my colouring to my backing paper but this time, with putting the shadow round the digi that was not going to work. I am a tinker for having all sorts of things tucked away that I might need one day, you know the sort of thing, see it have a plan, buy it, not use it lol. In this case the item was some rather scrumptious fur fabric. Well why not, great fun for a funky card hahahah.

With the furry card base, digi and die cut ready it was time to set to work on the embellishments. Again, problem matching the pinks in my ribbon bundle. Oh well, back to the old solution, use white and colour with Promarkers. The satin ribbon coloured beautifully but I knew I was going to have a problem attaching it nicely to the very textured loose surface underneath. I ended up using adhesive spray and sticking the ribbon to card to make it easier to work with.

Now for the fun bit, with all the items created time to assemble. I have also made a tag which says ' I have something to tell you but Shhhhhhh' - somehow this card seems perfect for a girly secret <g> The tag was finished off with the same gems as I used for the hair and then attached it to a metal embossed plate which I feel was the perfect contrasting embellishment to go with this very pink card.

Here is a close up of the tag.

And here is a close up of the fur fabric under the die cut - scrummy yummy.

Finally, after a fun filled morning, the completed card. Hope you like it :)

Monday, April 21, 2014

Hello folks, here I am again with an image from Sweet Pea Stamps. This week is Featured Artist - Mitzi Sato-Wiuff, a stunning fantasy artist. If you love fantasy you really need to check out her artwork, it is amazing. I have chosen to use the image Snapdragon Sprite with Baby Dragon, this image is only available as a rubber stamp.

What a lot of fun I had using this image to make a gift bag. I have to admit, it is not the sort of image I tend to go for but once I started colouring it I was in my element for a whole two hours and that was just the colouring lol.

So to start with, a plain gift bag.

I had decided to work in oranges - now that is a challenge for me, I can colour in blues, purples and greens but when it comes to the hot colours I seem to lose it. As the say, practice, practice, practice. Promarkers and the air gun attachment were used to colour the bag.

Next I took a piece of lace and coloured it the same way as I did the gift bag.

Once the lace was dry I attached it to the gift back with spray adhesive.

To finish the main part of the bag I attached some peach organza ribbon and added Liquid Pearls around the bottom edge.

Now for the embellishments. Another thing I am useless at is bow tying, even after lots of practice the bows look OK but nothing special. Last night I sent a couple of hours hunting the net for ways to tie bows and at last think I have found a way that works for me, yes, I am pretty pleased with my bow this time hahahaha. The metal love heart is from a pack I bought ages ago and just never seem to have the right thing to use them on until now :)

Silver really was not a colour that was going to work with this card so I coloured the metal love heart with the same colours as I am using of the image.

Next to colour the image with my Promarkers.

And here we have the completed gift bag.

I also added some skeleton leaves behind the image, nice and delicate and add some more texture without being to cluttered.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Hello folks. We have another challenge at One Stitch At A Time so how about popping over to see all the fabulous creations by the design team.

Challenge 209

Theme 'Favourite Things'

The sponsor is StitchyBear Digital Outlet with a 7 image prize pack. To win main prize you MUST use an Image from our store. Runner up prize for person using none store image is $3 to spend in the StitchyBear Digital Outlet. So everyone can win something ;O).

Oh this is such a lovely challenge, flowers, it had to be flowers for me as they are one of my favourite things that I love to colour, love to draw, love to see growing, just love, love love :) :) :)

To make my card I first covered my card blank with some hand made paper which had leaves and petals embedded into it. I then attached some hessian/burlap type lace stuff and some proper lace.

Next I used Photoshop to create a mottled background behind the digi and printed

Once the digi was coloured with Promarkers I then cut it out using Spellbinders Grand Circles

Next I used the next size up in the Spellbinders Grand Circles to cut a hessian mount and finally Spellbinders Grand Scallop Circles to cut a mount to of the same handmade paper I used to back the card. Once assembled I added some Bisque Liquid Pearls and a Thank You peel off sticker.

Time to get some raffia out and make a bow to which I added some green organza. To finish off I used a butterfly charm and threaded beads, sequins and pearls to the thread. Rather like this so will no doubt be doing it again <g>